


One Cool Kid and One Cola Kid

by CassleyCanopus



Series: Amnesty- Featuring Coola Kids [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But I would fight for these boys, First Meeting, How do tag good?, LITERALLY, M/M, Obscure 80s slang, Obscure Ship, They've never even been in a scene together, probably, strangers to friends to more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 02:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassleyCanopus/pseuds/CassleyCanopus
Summary: Kirby is faced by an intruder one night in the shop. He doesn't mind too much. It's not his business on the line, after all.Plus, like... he's super cute.(AKA a rushed introduction to the ship no one asked for)





	One Cool Kid and One Cola Kid

An early dusk was beginning to infect the skies of Kepler, West Virginia, like so many lice. Near the horizon, the sun bruised the clouds into flame, and, from the direction of the rising moon, you could see the velvet black sky starting to knit itself into being. Mere suggestions of stars dusted the heavens, and the breeze set a menacing whisper running through the trees, and, beneath it all, Kirby was _bored as shit_.

He was stuck halfway through grammar checking one of those ‘no, I really did see a monster' submissions that made their way to the Lamplighter mailbox every now and then. He wasn't a pretentious guy, honest he wasn’t, but if he kept the submissions with their mistakes, Mike Durnam from two towns over shot him passive-aggressive emails about _oh you may have missed these errors and by the way did you hear about the incredible and far superior discoveries in my flawless zine_ (‘Speak Of The Devilish’. Honestly).

He yawned, and squinted at the note once more. Now, was it cemetery or cematary? Kirby had never doubted it before, but in this moment the word was glaring up at him and making him regret every life choice that had led to it seeing him. Him seeing it. Whatever.

He was going to need a heck of a lot more RC to get through this one.

Looking up from the monitor, Kirby was surpised to see how dark it had become. He got up, dithered, decided _ah fuck i_ t and headed for the vending machine instead of the light switch. Instantly regretted that decision when the door slammed open, simulatenously making Kirby jump about six feet in the air and revealing a silhouette at the door.

 _Ah fuck fuck fuck_. Ned wouldn't be back for another hour and no self-respecting tourist arrived at this time of day. Kirby scrambled for the light switch, rambling some spiel about early closure sorry please go away as he did so.

The light turned on. There was- okay, even being the accomplished writer he was, Kirby had no other way to phrase it-

There was a racical young man at the door.

Looked to be in his twenties, about Kirby's own age, with tufts of blond hair bursting out from some neon backwards baseball cap disaster. Cute. That was for damn sure. He spared a second to shoot Kirby a grin from around an exhausted, vaguely panicked frown, and that was when Kirby knew he was doomed.

“Hey man,” he said, tucking a board under one arm, “I'm in a major hurrino, so- hey, wait a second. Don’t I know you?”

“No, but I bet you want to,” said the gay part of Kirby's brain with a wink.

“Uh,” said the part of Kirby's brain responsible for Normal Human Interaction, and, thankfully, so did Kirby. “Can’t say I recognise you there. You been up to the Cryptonomica before? I mighta shown you round."

Round these parts, it was unusual not to recognise someone full stop, but Kirby brushed that thought aside.

The stranger's nose creased up when he thought. “Nah, that’s not it. Huh. Sure I've seen you before somewhere.”

“Just got that kinda face, I guess. But I reckon I would have remembered if I'd seen you before.” Kirby realised, belatedly, that he'd said that last part out loud. “You know. Cause you got, you got that kinda neon aesthetic. I mean, I don’t see a lot of folks with that, uh, that particular fashion sense round here, lemme tell you. Uh. You got a name?”

“Hell yeah, dude. Jake Coolice, the one and only.” He finger-gunned Kirby with the kind of head gesture that implied he was winking under the shades.

Huh. Kirby was sure he'd heard the name Jake peppered in Ned's various not-quite-quiet grumblings more recently. But then the old man had finally been getting out a bit more in the past few months, so maybe he shouldn't be surprised. It was just- man, he was not expecting Ned to choose to hang out with pretty snowboarding guys of all people. Eh, maybe it was a different Jake.

“Ah, shit!” Jake suddenly said, interrupting Kirby's train of thought. “I gotta- listen, dude, this is gonna seem pretty whack, but-"

Without another word, Jake was whizzing around the room like a hurricane, pausing only at the window ledges to dig something out of his pocket and seemingly... apply it?

“Whoa- wait a second!” Kirby managed through an incredulous laugh. “You can't just-"

“Hang on, dude, chill. Listen. I know this is kinda odd, but could you just, like, flow with it?”

“No, no, I just wanted to tell you that you missed a ledge, cause this is a normal thing that we do round here a lot. So, you know, please continue, don’t let me stop you. Just, uh, wanted to ask on a side note what the literal heck you’re doing?”

Jake seemed to deflate slightly as his finished by the final ledge. “Right. Okay, yeah, fine. There’s, uh- there's some stuff going on right now. Real bad shit, kinda like grody to the max, you know? So-“ he started edging towards the door- “look, I have to go, but Ned'll explain everything, I promise, just bear with this for a lil bit? Ned's lettin' me prepare the place like this, if that's what's worryin' you.”

Huh. So Ned really was hanging out with pretty snowboarding guys.

He crossed the doorway and this time Kirby saw what he did. He was drawing a handful of a white powder from his pocket and pouring a line of it across the threshold. Jake caught him staring and raised his eyebrows hopefully.

“I- uh, yeah. Okay, if you say Ned's cool with this. I mean, it's his shop, no skin off my back, right?”

“Gnarly. ‘Kay, I’ve gotta go; it was nice meetin' you- uh-"

“Kirby,” he supplied.

“Kirby. Oh, hey, you were on Ned's show that one time, right? I knew I knew your face- from that time the mic was all messed up and you had to go help Ned turn it on. You’re that cute-" 

An alarm wailed from Jake's wrist. He looked at his watch (neon red and clunky enough to be waterproof) and cursed.

“Dang, I gotta motor. Just- leave the lines, okay? Trust me.” He was yelling now as he sprinted away. “See you again sometime!”

Kirby stood in that room- silent once more- for a good few seconds, trying to process whatever the hell had just happened. He sighed. Just his luck this kind of thing went down when Ned was away on one of his ‘important bimonthly business meetings'.

Still. The RC Colas were looking good. He elbowed the machine in its sweet spot (something he always avoided doing when Ned was around) and it spat out a couple cans. As he went to inspect one of the window ledges, he cracked one open, using his other hand to run a finger along the powder. He hesitated, but tasted it anyway.

Salt. Lines of salt at the windows and doors. Wasn’t that a protection thing, back somewhere in the realities of childhood? 

Now that was some fantasy shit, not like the very real and very attractive young man who Kirby would most definitely be asking Ned about. If, that is, the old man didn’t kill him for letting someone scatter salt all over the shop.

Huh. It was a dark and weird night, that was for sure.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah I know this is a bit of a weird coupling but like- I think it would really work? So naturally I had to cobble this together to get the idea out there. I also feel like we have not seen enough of these two characters for this to not age horribly but dang it I needed this to be a thing.
> 
> Didn't hate it? Leave kudos! You have no idea how much I live for postitive reinforcement.


End file.
